Hedge-Funder Buys Wall Street Duplex for $8.1 M.; ‘My Wife and I Like to Do Ballsy Things’

Adam Sender, a hedge-fund man with an absurdly gorgeous art collection, now has an absurd 36th-floor duplex in the brand-new financial district condo called Downtown by Philippe Starck.

According to city records, he paid around $8.1 million for a three-unit apartment that will stretch nearly 6,300 square feet—not including the three massive terraces, Mr. Sender pointed out.

“It’s a ballsy move! Most people who have money wouldn’t move down there,” he said, meaning Wall Street. “But my wife and I like to do ballsy things.”

Ballsy or not, he got first choice on the building’s upper-floor apartments and, in August 2004, signed a contract for two side-by-side apartments. A bigger spread upstairs came later, and all deals closed last month.

(Plus, he bought a fourth apartment lower down that he’s already flipped for an easy $645,000 payday.)

So what does he think of the building’s namesake designer? “Well, we’re ripping it apart,” he said, meaning his duplex. “We hired our own architect. We didn’t buy it for Starck; we didn’t buy it for any other reason than location.”

Speaking of location, he predicted that the Stock Exchange across the street will eventually become archaic and be turned “into a museum or bar mitzvah hall or concert hall.”

What of the duplex’s décor? “We’ll have high ceilings,” he said, “and we’ll certainly be filling it with great art.”